So Thursday April the 1st (April fools day) was my last day in the office last week. I love my new work regime, 3 days in the office, and two days working from home. That will save me around $150 AUD ($100 USD) a week in fuel, tolls, parking, coffee and lunch, that I can spend on bike parts. Bargain! As much as I wanted to get out and ride my bike yesterday, I wanted to do some "improvements" including a twin disc front end (with drilled cast iron discs, new organic brake pads, braided lines and a Yamaha "Brembo" MC from an FJR1300.
Now I'm back in the office, I start at 6am, and by 8 I'm hungry. On my second day back I tried eating "Saltana Bran" That was only 6 months out of date, but the carboard box was tastier than this sh1t, so I elected to go across the street to my favourite breakfast restaurant. The young guy behind the counter recognised me and remembered my order, which was amazing since I hadn't been there in 13 months? Regardless, I had the best breakfast in a year. I could only manage half of it, and that took me an hour to get down, but it was on the company dollar, and I loved it.
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 2 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Anyhoo, man can't live on delicious breakfasts and work alone, so as soon as I got home I started looking for parts for my twin front disc conversion. The key item is either a modified K1 to K6 speedo drive, or even better, a K0 one. it only took me an hour or so of ratting thru tubs and crawling under my work bench before I located one.
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 3 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 4 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Mine was slightly mangled due to a PO not installing the speedo drive into the gearbox before cranking it down tight, but I used an ancient device only known to our forebears called a "file" to clean up the burrs and make it taskworthy again.
Even though I had a new slightly used cast iron drilled rotor I opted to use two "virgin" rotors with new organic "Metal Gear" pads. I used the same pads in my K0 and am impressed that the more I use it the better the front brake works. (for a CB750)
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 9d by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 9a by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I bolted on the new rotors with longer (120mm) grade 8 bolts. It's important that if you're doing this you use bolts with a longer shaft so that you don't have the threaded portion bearing the load, for fear of snapping them off. Yeah, it'll probably never happen, but it only has to happen once, to spoil your day.
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 6 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
This is the abridged version of what really happened, I also discovered that I had a blown fork seal, so after degreasing everything to remove the old oil I had to remove both legs and replace both seals, but that's OK, I wanted to remove the engine oil I used in 2017 when I was 120 pounds heavier and needed stiffer front forks. I also discovered that air forks are the best for removing old fork oil when I forgot to deflate them before undoing a drain screw, and spraying 250 ml of oil in a 6 foot jet up my driveway. "Clean up in aisle 3!"
I replaced the (now empty) forks with 250ml of ATF. Apart from that, I also broke a 6mm screw off in one fork leg, so had to drill it out using the small/bigger/biggest drill bit method but couldn't save the OEM thread so installed a thread insert with some loctite, and all was well. It's important when you do this conversion you use bolts with fairly shallow heads, or else the heads will come into contact with the speedo gearbox and destroy it. I've done this conversion many times over the years, but there are still things I forget. Well, maybe that's because I'm old and senile.
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 9c by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I used a nice caliper with slightly tired OEM paint for my new caliper, and of course it was a K1-early K2 item, which is fine, except that the "swingarm" bracket on the early calipers don't work with the later brackets, so I ended up hunting thru my tub of brake calipers until I found the one and only bracket that would suit. Of course it was attached to a corroded, rusty old caliper whose bolts refused to come out, so I had to drill the heads off. I actually had to do this twice, as I needed the curved "hat" that sits on the brake caliper piston from yet another corroded old caliper to allow the pad to self align with the disc rotor. Only took most of Friday, when it was around 90 degrees and all I wanted to do was go for a ride. Oh well.
When I was going thru my tubs of spares looking for a new piston seal I found a double banjo bolt which was lucky as I would have had to make one otherwise. I also found several bags with new braided brake lines in them that I bought for one of the kawasaki's, and now I've gone back to using a stock set of wheels and brakes on my Z1-B (and already had new replica brake lines) I "borrowed" them and used a 1 metre long line to run from the caliper to the FJR1300 "Brembo" master cylinder, which I won't need for my Kawasaki either, so it was up for grabs. I hope the "Rivet Counters" note my unforgivable use of white aircraft cable ties again, and gnash their teeth with rage......
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 9j by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 9g by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
K2 Bitsa twin disc front end 2 April 2021 9i by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
So I hooked everything up, bled the brakes, and was happy that there were no leaks. I jacked up the front wheel and went to turn it, but couldn't. Great..........
That was Friday. Yesterday I woke up early-ish, ate breakfast, cleaned up my mess from the night before, then jumped in my car. I needed to drive to my Ma's place 200 miles away, and do some other stuff along the way. To do the "other stuff" I needed to hire a cage trailer. As I was turning out of my street into the main road I spotted a guy towing a cage trailer, and followed him to the local Shell station, and watched him return the trailer, which was great as it was the only trailer in the whole place! Woohoo! I filled the car with diesel, hooked up the trailer, and headed down the road.
I stopped first at my mate Fred's place. Like me, Fred is a CB750 nut, but is only interested in K1's. I'd been looking for a low numbers K1 frame to go with my 106XXXX (1970) engine as the frame I got with it (in parts, as usual, with many missing) was a 112XXXX (1971) and I couldn't find one anywhere. JustJohn here saw that I was looking for one and said he had a 108XXXX frame, which was way better than a 112XXXX, so he drove it all the way from Georgia to Sarasota, Florida, to drop it off at my shippers, what a great guy!
Anyway, I'd told Fred about it, and he said that he had a minty 107XXXX frame that would suit my 106XXXX engine, and my 108XXXX frame (which will be here in a week or so) would suit him as he has a 109XXXX engine? Sweet. Fred and I dragged the frame down from the top of the shelving in his garage, then I went thru his fuel tank collection as I need a tank to paint for my K1. I swapped him a late K2-6 head and a stock cam as he needed the valves, springs etc for his next K1 build. We put them in the back of my Ford, and I drove on down to Bairnsdale and out to my cousins' farm. I was picking up a couple of Velo/Solex mopeds from the 1960's to sell for him (I was gonna keep one, but decided that I didn't need one and couldn't think of a use I'd have for one) but first he had to move his 1928 Dodge "Fast Four".
We pushed the little mopeds into the trailer then drove into town to his other house (he's in the process of moving a huge amount of vintage cars, bikes, parts etc out to the "farm", which is only 5 acres or so, but he does have some sheep, so I guess it qualifies. We then spent another half hour or so filling the trailer full of Puch "Twingle" parts.
Puch's and Velo-Solex pile by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
The wife had already threatened to murder me if I brought home any more bikes and parts, (and I haven't told her about the K2 on it's way down from Far North Queensland as I type this, as yet) and anyway, I decided I was gonna sell it all and give the money to my cuz, so I took it to Spotty's place and he helped me unload everything into his garage. Spotty is my business manager, so he's going to sell it all, take his fee, and I'll give the rest to my cuz. Spotty is a great seller of things, and being around 7 feet tall and 300 pounds, he rarely gets anyone returning an item.
I thought the wife had gone to her mother's place for an Easter Sunday party, so was in no rush to get home, so drove over to the carwash, gave the Ford a good wash, then dropped off the trailer, drove over to "Dan Murphy's" to buy a box of Ginger Joe, and came home. The wife was home surprisingly so we had a chat while I chugged down a bottle of GJ, then I turned my attention to the sticking front brakes. I wondered about a blocked return vent in the MC, but before I dug into it, I loosened off the bolts on the right caliper, and the wheel spun freely.
The caliper was perfectly lined up with the disc, it had a good piston and new seal, and fresh fluid. It was almost as if the pads were a little too thick? I have had this same situation on another bike, but before I did anything drastic I removed the caliper side pad to make sure the little curved "Hat" hadn't fallen out of the piston, but nope, it was there. Well, it was time for a "haircut". Now I still wasn't 100% sure this was the problem, so rather than bugger my new pads, I found an old one and put it in my lathe and machined it around 2mm thinner than the new pad. The benefit here also, was that I'd removed all the old oil, grease, road grime etc, so it was virgin material again.
K2 bitsa brake pad haircut by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I reinstalled it in the caliper, bolted it back onto the bike, jacked the front up, and spun the wheel, this time, there was just a slight drag. I fired the bike up and went for a quick lap around the block, and I couldn't believe how well the brakes worked, bloody magnificent! After 3+ years of "Average" (crap) brakes, all of a sudden, it feels almost as good as the brakes on my modern bikes! Keeping an eye on my mirrors (so I didn't have a car run up my arse) I grabbed a handful of brakes and just about buried the headlight into the asphalt! I couldn't help myself, I had to ride a few more miles, just enjoying my day, and loving my new brakes.
Tomorrow is another public holiday, so I think I better ride the K2 to the Heathcote Bakery for a pie. I haven't been there for a couple of weeks, so I thought I better go back just to make sure they're still there? The holiday traffic coming back into the city will be sh1t on the main roads, so I'll stick to the back roads as much so as possible to avoid getting stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, even on a bike which is a lot easier to cut around traffic, it's still a pain in the butt. Hopefully nothing will fall off, or explode, and it'll be a great ride. More soon.
